Ebrahim Golestan: Lion of Iranian Cinema
In the first week of May, the Gene Siskel Film Center joins the School of Media Arts of Columbia College Chicago, the University of Chicago Film Studies Center, and the Northwestern University Department of Radio, Film, and Television, in an unprecedented collaboration to present the long-unseen films of Iranian director Ebrahim Golestan. The filmmaker will be present for discussion at screenings the weekend of May 4-6.
Of all the directors who worked in Iran prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution, Golestan, a legendary innovator and creative force in film and literature, inspires the most curiosity. His films are not in distribution, and have not been seen in public for approximately 35 years. Thanks now to the director himself, who emigrated to England in 1978, and to the cooperation of the Film Studies Center Archive at the University of Chicago, this body of work key to understanding the evolution of contemporary Iranian cinema may be seen.
Ebrahim Golestan was born in Shiraz, Iran, in 1922, to a family that owned a newspaper. After attending Tehran University, he quickly proved his talent in many fields, becoming known as a photographer, published writer of short stories, translator of western authors including Hemingway, Shaw, and Twain, and finally, filmmaker and producer. The only filmmaker in Iran at the time to establish his own studio, he was the first to introduce advanced technology, including direct sound recording.
The Golestan Film Unit produced industrial shorts, in addition to independent auteur work including Golestan’s own feature films, THE BRICK AND THE MIRROR, and THE SECRET OF THE TREASURE OF THE JINN VALLEY, and the seminal short film THE HOUSE IS BLACK, written and directed by one of Iran’s most revered poets, Forough Farrokhzad. Even the commissioned shorts are distinguished by Golestan’s lyrical style, and by his metaphysical approach to subject matter like the production of oil. A renowned intellectual, he attracted other writers and thinkers to the studio, which became known as a hub of creativity. Farrokhzad worked in several capacities including as the editor of Golestan’s short A FIRE.
To contemplate the unprecedented realism and dark poetry of THE BRICK AND THE MIRROR, both a social statement and a drama of personal angst, and to appreciate the barbed comedy of dissent of THE SECRET OF THE TREASURE OF THE JINN VALLEY, which aptly skewers the shah’s monarchy, is to see an important missing piece in the history of Iranian cinema fall into place. In the films of Ebrahim Golestan, the lyrical imagery of Bahman Farmanara, the realist strategies of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and the metaphysical depth of Abbas Kiarostami, each have some substantial precedent. Golestan’s history as an innovator and a catalyst is a legacy that continues to resonate through Iranian cinema.
For their support in making this series possible, the Gene Siskel Film Center thanks the following. At Columbia College Chicago: Steven Kapelke, Provost; Doreen Bartoni, Dean, School of Media Arts; Mehrnaz Saeed-vafa; Sandy Cuprisin, Film and Video Department. At Northwestern University: Hamid Naficy, Department of Radio, Film, Television, the Center for Screen Cultures, the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies, and Block Cinema. At the University of Chicago: Julia Gibbs and Tom Gunning, Film Studies Center. Special thanks to The Peninsula Chicago, the official hotel of the Gene Siskel Film Center, and Trattoria #10
--Barbara Scharres
Ebrahim Golestan in person!
THE SECRET OF THE TREASURE OF THE JINN VALLEY
(ASRA-I GANJ-I DARRAH-I JINNI)
1972, Ebrahim Golestan, Iran, 118 min.
With Parviz Sayyad, Mary Apik
A poor villager tumbles into a cave holding a fortune in bejeweled antiquities, launching an allegorical comedy that retains its audacious zing more than thirty years after it aimed a stinging satire at the shah’s regime. All power corrupts, as the adage goes, and the hero embraces the power that comes with untold wealth with unseemly glee, indulging in mounting excess and gauche preening that soon make him the marvel of the region. Golestan’s sly buffoonery and humorously stylized art direction effortlessly find their targets while fronting the illusion of innocence. In Persian with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of the Film Studies Center Archive, University of Chicago. (BS)
On Friday, Ebrahim Golestan will be present for audience discussion.
Friday, May 4, 7:30 pm
Monday, May 7, 7:45 pm
Ebrahim Golestan in person!
Early Documentaries
1961-1965, Ebrahim Golestan, Iran, 95 min.
These key early documentaries, three commissioned by the Iran Oil Company, and one commissioned and then banned by the shah’s cultural ministry, demonstrate Golestan’s unique talent for transforming films intended as educational short subjects into poetic and sometimes ironic reflections on history, labor, and the forces of nature. The program includes: THE WAVE, CORAL AND ROCK (MAWJ U MARJAN U KHARA, 1961, 40 min.); A FIRE (YAK ATASH, 1961, 25 min.); THE HILLS OF MARLIK (TAPPEHA-YE MARLIK, 1963, 15 min.); and THE IRANIAN CROWN JEWELS (GANJINAH-I JAVAHIRAT-I SALTANATI, 1965, 15 min.). All in English and in Persian with English subtitles except for THE IRANIAN CROWN JEWELS; English text will be provided. 35mm prints courtesy of the Film Studies Center Archive, University of Chicago. (BS)
On Saturday, Ebrahim Golestan will be present for audience discussion.
Saturday, May 5, 3:00 pm
Wednesday, May 9, 8:15 pm
Ebrahim Golestan in person!
THE BRICK AND THE MIRROR
(KESHT U A’INAH)
1965, Ebrahim Golestan, Iran, 124 min.
With Taji Ahmadi, Zakaria Hashemi
One of Reader critic Jonathan Rosenbaum’s “Top 1000” from his book Essential Cinema, THE BRICK AND THE MIRROR is as fabled for being unseen in a public screening in over 35 years as for its significant thematic and technical breakthroughs. Moody realism conveys a stark poetry in this tale of a cab driver stuck with an abandoned baby in his back seat. Moral quandaries and social fears vie with eroticism when the driver and a lonely woman spend the night with the baby as the phantom facsimile of a family. The film’s finale, set in an orphanage, is a stunning, haunting piece of social realism that was to send ripples of influence through the next four decades of Iranian cinema. In Persian with English subtitles. 35mm print courtesy of the Film Studies Center Archive, University of Chicago. (BS)
On Saturday, Ebrahim Golestan will be present for audience discussion.
Saturday, May 5, 7:45 pm
Thursday, May 10, 6:00 pm
Free admission!
A Symposium on Ebrahim Golestan
Block Cinema, Northwestern University
40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL
Presentations by Professor Tom Gunning of the University of Chicago and Professor Hamid Naficy of Northwestern University accompany a screening of the short films THE HOUSE IS BLACK by Forough Farrokhzad (KHANEH SIAH AST, 1961, 20 min.) and, tentatively, THE HARVEST AND THE SEED by Ebrahim Golestan (KHARMAN U BAZR, 1965, 30 min.). Both in Persian without subtitles; English text provided. Ebrahim Golestan will be present for discussion. For more information: 847-491-4000, blockmuseum@northwestern.edu.